Quakes Damage Dooms Hollywood Christian Sanctuary : Church Reagan Once Attended Faces Wreckers

The one-time church of President Reagan is about to be torn down.

It is not the hilltop Bel Air Presbyterian Church where the Reagans occasionally attended services before moving to the White House.

The wreckers are going to dismantle the earthquake-damaged sanctuary of the Hollywood-Beverly Christian Church, near Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue.

When the congregation was the home to many actors in the 1940s and 1950s, Reagan’s mother was an active member, and Reagan and his children also attended. The President still maintains his membership, sending in a monthly check.

Determined to Stay

The dwindling congregation is determined to stay in the same location, despite the high residential turnover and the presence of drug dealing and prostitution in the area, said Jeanne Karpenko, a longtime member who lives in Glendale.

‘If any place needs a church, this place does,” Karpenko said.

The congregation voted last month to take their least expensive ($175,000) option by tearing down the heavily damaged, 900-seat sanctuary and fixing up the present place of worship, the education building.

“It’s broken everybody’s heart, but we don’t have the money to rebuild the sanctuary,” Karpenko said. The cost of rebuilding was placed at about $500,000, not to mention about $2,000 in monthly upkeep costs.

The church moved its Sunday services to a hall in the education building three years ago. City inspectors detected structural damage from the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and said that the buildings would have to meet safety standards.

The Oct. 1 Whittier earthquake made the damage obvious: support for the pillared front of the church has been undermined and the whole facade has begun to pull away from the unreinforced masonry walls of the 36-foot-high sanctuary.

The Whittier quake occurred on a Thursday morning; Senior Pastor Benjamin Moore said that if he had been preaching at the time, “I would have been killed.”

“Very heavy materials from the ceiling came down on the pulpit and the choir loft,” Moore said.

Might Harm Homeless

“The church was constructed the same year I was born, 1922,” he said, “and I don’t feel so well myself.”

The windows have been boarded up to protect the church’s stained-glass windows, and a chain-link fence surrounds the sanctuary.

“I’m hoping we can get demolition started by March,” Moore said. “It’s dangerous. People will not stay away from the building, despite the fence.”

He said the homeless who sometimes nestle up to the wall of the church’s nearby chapel at night might get showered with falling masonry should another earthquake hit.

The congregation does not now have the money for changes it wants to make. The estimated $20,000 cost of the demolition will be covered by $60,000 in extra giving the church expects to get from members this month and next, Moore said. The church had earlier raised and spent $350,000 to make the education building earthquake-safe, and it came through the Oct. 1 quake in good shape, Moore said.

The church bulletin is mailed regularly to the White House, Moore said, but he has had no indication that the Reagans keep up with news of the church.

“I think if he were aware of it, he might be a little more generous with his giving,” Moore said.

Noted Opposition to Contras

Reagan took notice last year of the Presbyterian General Assembly’s continued opposition to the Reagan Administration’s support of the Contra forces seeking to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan made inquiries by telephone with Bel Air Presbyterian’s Rev. Donn Moomaw, whom the President considers his pastor. Moomaw in turn arranged a White House meeting between Reagan and members of the Presbyterian task force on Central America.

There was no reaction, however, last fall when the denomination to which the Hollywood-Beverly Christian Church belongs, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), sent Reagan a letter signed by 800 convention delegates criticizing his domestic and foreign policies in the light of his Christian convictions.

Moore, who has been at the Hollywood-Beverly church for 17 years, said he believes that Reagan has continued his affiliation with the congregation “in deference to his late mother, Nellie. She was a saint to everyone who knew her.”

Jane Wyman Taught There

Reagan’s first wife, actress Jane Wyman, taught in the church school for a while in the 1940s when more film studios were located in Hollywood. Actor George Kennedy and Gale Storm, star of the early television series “My Little Margie,” also attended the church.

As the neighborhood changed, Moore said the membership went from about 1,700 in the 1950s to about 250 people with a wide ethnic and racial mix.

The congregation was well-known in ecumenical church circles. The Los Angeles and Southern California councils of churches had their offices in apartments on the church grounds for several years until 1977.

A senior citizens residence supported by the denomination still stands nearby. But another nearby apartment building was “a rat’s nest of drug dealing and prostitution,” as church member Karpenko put it. Church members leased the building with an option to buy, tossed out the undesirable tenants and have been renovating the facility.

Other Churches Affected

The Oct. 1 earthquake affected numerous churches and synagogues. The San Gabriel Mission and museum remains closed except for a newer church building. A Presbyterian church in Rosemead used by a Latino congregation had to be torn down. The Breed Street Synagogue in East Los Angeles faces an uncertain future. Several Episcopal parishes have costly repair bills.

But last fall’s damaging earthquake made the Hollywood-Beverly Church’s decision to concentrate on improving its smaller quarters a little easier. Church officials sought a permit in November, 1985, from the city to tear down the sanctuary instead of making costly repairs.

Despite its “history” as the one-time church home of a President and its imposing facade, “it was not called a historical landmark, thank God,” Karpenko said. That kind of designation by city officials requires churches to repair their buildings regardless of the congregation’s own wishes.